Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The clay and the potter are only part of the deal in which the object you come to know, to love, is created. The whole process is born of Time, of failure, of passing trends, and ultimately persistence, the sense that determination to see the image that has filled your creative urge will see the moment beyond the fires in the kiln, that the design, the conception and foundation of your art will stand in splendour for all to see in an art gallery in an exotic land, or even in a lobby of an homely establishment, one that might have a neon sign above the reception desk proclaiming the legend, Welcome To Bobby’s Motel.
Not everything that describes itself as punk has the right to adorn itself in the clothes or the mannerisms of the genre, and it could be argued that the type has become too diluted to contain something as forceful as the old guard used to be, placing the likes of The Sex Pistols for example, into the realm of classic rock. Such is the moveable foundations that music and art, pottery and design are forever being shifted by the current holders of youth’s badge into areas that they are comfortable with.
Quebec’s Pottery though may be seen to be in the category of the indie rock or garage punk, however, as their debut album rattles the cages of dust-filled memories and seeks to overpower the beige and the dull. What can be found is a heart shaped bulge of integrity to be, to demand, their own flourishing style is more in keeping with what could be seen as musical Steampunk, fitting the best of the growl and the anger to which the original progenitors of the age found to a willing party to destroying the outdated behemoths of Prog and classic easy listening, with a more substantial wave of the under four minute romps and pleasures.
Welcome To Bobby’s Motel, where the furnishings are anything but aligned, one corporate colour and a set of rules which demand obtuse payment and deference to the suits and the advanced tip, instead what Pottery have declared open is a season of listen how you want and never mind the neighbours, for here is the truth of the motel, it is your own interpretation of how it sound that makes it a rich and fantastic stay; a motel with the finest menu, a motel that doesn’t mind if you put your feet up and stay a while.
Across tracks such as Under the Wires, Bobby’s Forecast, Down In The Dumps, Texas Drums Parts 1-2, and What’s In Fashion, Austin Boylan, Peter Bayliss, Paul Jacobs, Jacob Shepansky, Tom Gould and Jonathan Schenke have found the zeitgeist, removed it from its uniform and given it carte blanche to bar the undeserving from entry, for only the appreciative, those that understand the pleasure will surely be allowed entry into this four star motel.
Pottery’s Welcome To Bobby’s Motel is out now.
Ian D. Hall